Japanese Public Disclosure Bulletin No 5-101859 published Apr. 23, 1993 discloses a flexible cable connector comprising: an elongate insulating housing having first and second, oppositely directed, cable receiving faces and formed with first and second, elongate cable receiving cavities with respective cable receiving mouths opening to the respective cable receiving faces; electrical contacts mounted in rows extending along respective cable receiving cavities; first and second, elongate, cable clamping sliders each having a central pressing portion, actuating portions at respective opposite ends of the pressing portion and locking arms with latching means at free ends thereof extending from respective actuating portions thereof in an insertion direction; means provided on opposite longitudinal ends of the housing for mounting the first and second cable clamping sliders on the housing with the respective locking arms extending towards opposite faces and respective pressing portions extending along the first and second cable receiving faces in alignment with respective cable receiving gaps for reciprocal sliding movement in the insertion direction between open, cable admitting positions in which the respective pressing portions are adjacent the respective cable admitting mouths to permit end portions of respective flexible cables to be inserted therethrough past the respective pressing portions into the respective cavities and closed, cable clamping positions in which the pressing portions are advanced into respective first and second cavities pressing respective conductive paths of inserted cable end portions into engagement with respective contacts to effect electrical connection therewith.
In the above-described connector, as the locking arms must retain the cable clamping sliders assembled with the housing in both cable admitting and cable clamping positions, the effective inter-face dimension of the housing in the direction of sliding movement of the locking arms (insertion direction) is relatively large to prevent the locking arms from interfering with each other during travel to the cable clamping position which results in a connector of undesirably large overall size.